Breeding Success

To launch a new series, Jack Smellie asks what successful breeding actually means and what we can do to achieve it

- Jack Smellie

Our move from one to 10 acres a year ago gave us the chance not only to own more stock, but also to breed more. I remember feeling so excited to think that my 30-year dream of having Dexter cattle on our land was finally going to come true and that we would have the privilege of breeding our own calves. We also wanted to increase our sheep numbers (from two), and we became dizzy with expectation when, in just 24 hours, a Facebook posting provided more than a dozen different breeds for us to choose from. And then there were the Boer goats, another part of the overall plan, in which we were, after years of goat keeping, finally hoping to raise our own goats for meat!

Overall, our first year’s breeding went incredibly well: three healthy calves, two sets of triplets from our Boers, 14 lambs from eight ewes (and one stillborn) and two cria (although we later tragically lost a mum), with all of these being unassisted births. And at the last count we had more than 80 assorted chicks, goslings, ducklings and turkey poults. Phew!

A fellow smallholder (with vastly more stock and experience than us) commented on our FB posting of calf number three and wrote ‘you have been lucky with your first year’s calving Jack’. We readily agreed, but then we stopped to think: really, had we been lucky or was it more that we had chosen sound breeding stock and provided good quality care over the winter? Or should the previous owners take credit for the right choice of bull? Is our land just such good quality that any animal would do well on it? In other words, what makes stock breeding successful or otherwise, what actually does successful breeding mean in the first place and, most crucially, how should we, as smallholders, manage our breeding programmes?

A wide range